Windows

The rws.exe in each release’s x86_64-pc-windows-msvc zip on the GitHub release page runs as it does elsewhere: it serves the current directory on port 7878.

Expand-Archive rws-18.2.0-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip C:\rws
cd C:\www
C:\rws\rws-18.2.0-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\rws.exe

As a Windows service

rws.exe --windows-service=<directory> runs under the Service Control Manager (since 18.2.0): it serves <directory> and reads <directory>\rws.config.toml if there is one. Stopping the service — or shutting Windows down — stops rws gracefully, finishing requests in flight.

In an administrator PowerShell:

New-Service -Name rws -DisplayName "rws web server" -StartupType Automatic `
  -BinaryPathName '"C:\rws\rws.exe" --windows-service="C:\www"'
Start-Service rws
curl.exe http://localhost:7878/healthz

Task	Command
Stop / start	Stop-Service rws, Start-Service rws
Apply a config change	Restart-Service rws — there is no SIGHUP on Windows. With watch = true rws reloads settings and routes by itself (Hot reload); a new certificate still needs a restart
Remove	Stop-Service rws; sc.exe delete rws

The directory is required: a service starts in C:\Windows\System32, and rws serves its working directory. Keep only what should be public in it (rws never serves rws.config.toml, *.pem or *.key).

A service has no console, so its access log goes nowhere unless you write it to a file — in <directory>\rws.config.toml:

access_log = 'C:\rws\logs\access.log'
access_log_max_size = 104857600   # rotate at 100 MiB

The service runs as LocalSystem by default; to run it as a less privileged account, set one with sc.exe config rws obj= "NT AUTHORITY\LocalService" and give that account read access to the directory and write access to the log directory.